I've suggested (& published in 21 journal papers) a new theory called quantised inertia (or MiHsC) that assumes that inertia is caused by relativistic horizons damping quantum fields. It predicts galaxy rotation, cosmic acceleration & the emdrive without any dark stuff or adjustment. My Plymouth University webpage is here, I've written a book called Physics from the Edge and I'm on twitter as @memcculloch

Sunday, 28 June 2015

Asking nature for directions

Standard physics now assumes that gravity is caused by matter making a curvature in space (general relativity) and microscopic behaviour is caused by quantum mechanics. This theoretical duality is ugly: there should only be one model.

Einstein in his later years thought that model should be a field theory like general relativity. I much prefer quantum mechanics which has passed every test (it has even passed a crazy test, given Bell's anomaly) whereas general relativity has been well tested at high accelerations, but in my view has failed at low accelerations. For example, it didn't predict galaxy rotation and needs a huge dark matter fudge, and it didn't predict cosmic acceleration and needs another dark energy fudge. Gravitational waves haven't been found either. So I like quantum mechanics and I've been trying to build everything from that (specifically the zero point field and Unruh radiation) with a dash of special relativity (specifically Rindler horizons) added.

The resulting model for inertia, MiHsC, makes successful predictions that general relativity cannot do by itself, eg: galaxy rotation, cosmic acceleration and others. Buoyed by this I've tried for many years to get gravity from several MiHsC-compatible schemes. One based on the GPS carrier phase method (that I teach), one invoking the uncertainty principle (dp.dx~hbar) and one involving the sheltering of Unruh radiation by massive bodies. All are intriguing, but all have problems. For example, for the latter, it is unclear to me how opaque matter is to Unruh radiation, and I don't want to incorporate an uncertain quantity.

How to proceed? The way I approached things with MiHsC is with some imagination, but also having the humility to ask nature for directions, and by that I mean: finding an anomaly that tells me which of the many possible theories I can imagine is actually the right one. Luckily, there is one gravity anomaly that is bugging me: an anomalous variation in the gravitational constant (G) that I have discussed before, that appears to have a 5.9 year period (Anderson et al., 2015) and seems to coincide with an increase in the length of day.

To paraphrase H.L. Mencken: one good anomaly is worth 10,000 syllogisms.

2 comments:

/* an anomalous variation in the gravitational constant (G) that I have discussed before, that appears to have a 5.9 year period (Anderson et al., 2015) and seems to coincide with an increase in the length of day. */

The curved space appears like being more dense than the neighboring vacuum with respect to spreading of light (gravity lens), but IMO it is really more dense, as it exhibits its own mass and gravity field (dark matter) in accordance to mass-energy equivalence. The curved space-time at the connection line of Jupiter and Sun makes vacuum more dense, which balances the density of Earth, which becomes relatively lighter and conservation of its orbital/rotational momentum leads into changes of orbital period, eccentricity and also speed of rotation.

If one uses dimensional analysis on the "constant" G, using GR to modify units of space, time and mass using the Refractive Index method. One finds that G is not constant but is a variable in a variable refractive index space-time. A non-linear effect.

G(K) = G/K^4, where K is the refractive index defined by the Schwarzschild metric coefficients;

K = sqrt(-g11/g00) = 1/sqrt(1 - Rs/R), where Rs is the Schwarzschild radius. In this example, length, time and mass are variables wrt K.

meters -> dx/sqrt(K)seconds -> dt*sqrt(K)kilograms -> kg*K^3/2

Based on this, G(K) scales according to -> (dx)^3/(dt^2 * kg)*K^4. These effects are apparent in strong GR, where the non-linear effects rule the day.

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